Mobile Home Kitchen Exhaust Fan – Cambria Bold is the managing editor of Cubby and one of the first full-time editors of Apartment Therapy Media way back when. She was the founding design and lifestyle editor for Kitchn and the managing editor of Apartment Therapy’s green living site, Re-Nest (RIP). After a few years offline and then working elsewhere, she’s back to share ideas about design, kids and family life. It helps that he now has two young children and thinks a lot about all these things. She lives with said children and their father in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Mobile Home Kitchen Exhaust Fan
The lack of a hood is the scourge of many rental kitchens. (Or even newly remodeled homes with a sleek, minimalist design.) With nothing to catch grease splatters and smoke, steam, and cooking odors, renters often struggle with cling film-covered cabinets and a kitchen that still smells like fish two days later this cooking.
Range Ventilation, Ventilation Hood, And Downdraft Ventilation
So what’s a home cook to do? Here are 10 tips that can help when your kitchen lacks ventilation, including advice from readers who have been there.
Some rental kitchens have ventless recirculating fans installed under the cabinets, which are supposed to trap grease and help with cooking odors. But many people (myself included) find them ineffective and bordering on useless.
Do you feel the same way? Here’s what you can do to mitigate the effects of your stoveless kitchen, with specific tips from our readers:
If you’re lucky enough to have a window in your kitchen (or at least one close by), install a small fan in the window and run it on “exhaust” every time you cook. This will draw out the air, and while it may not help much with the grease, it will help remove cooking odors. “Works like a charm,” said one of our readers.
Remodel A Mobile Home Kitchen
“Our rental microwave is an under-cabinet model mounted above the stove. It has a surface light and a fan, but it’s pretty useless and doesn’t go outside. When we cook something that might smoke or have an odor that might linger in the apartment (like frying), we open the kitchen window and put a fan at the other end of the kitchen to send all the air straight through the window. Our kitchen and dining room is a long kitchen, so it actually works quite well.
“I put a sheer cotton curtain on the frame of my kitchen door with a tensioner and put a fan at the top of my kitchen window. When I’m cooking something I know will smell, I close the curtain and run the exhaust fan – works like a charm! All the air blows out.
“It won’t help with grease, but a small fan in that conveniently located window will do wonders for odors. Slim window fans can be purchased for relatively little money.’
If you don’t have a window, another option is to put in a portable HEPA filter to trap odors, especially for things like grilling meat or cooking fish.
Ventilation Direct :: 4′ Mobile Kitchen Hood System With Exhaust Fan
“We don’t have a hood, but I use a portable HEPA filter in the kitchen when I fry steaks. Really, roasting meat seems to be the only thing that really makes me want a hood.
“In a rental property with a non-functioning vent hood, I bought a small air purifier that just plugged into the wall (think night light, not lamp) and stayed there. I ate quickly through filters, but if my ex cooked meat and turned on the fan, I couldn’t smell it from six feet away.
Any moving fan with some proximity to the kitchen will help you here. My bathroom is down the hall from our kitchen, but I still turn on the bathroom fan when I’m cooking something particularly smelly or smoky. This really helps reduce lingering odors.
A splash screen or guard is a device placed on a pan to catch grease splatters. They retail for around $10, making it a must have at this price point. You can really cut down on the amount of junk that ends up in your cupboards by never letting it out! We reviewed an odor-absorbing splash screen and were extremely impressed with how well it worked.
Kitchen Island Space And Sizing Guide
That’s the inevitable part of not having a range hood: you’ll just have to clean your cabinets more often than most. Make it part of your daily or weekly kitchen cleaning routine. We recommend wiping the cabinets and area around the stove with a grease-fighting soap like Dawn, although some readers have had success with Lysol wipes and a vinegar solution.
“I wipe down the stove, counters, surrounding walls and cabinets with a Lysol wipe after every meal. This is the last step of washing dishes. I never have any build up or residue.”
“I cook all the time (lots of sauteing and frying, tons of boiling and braising)…Frequent wiping down with vinegar spray takes care of any build-up on nearby walls. I just made it a part of the routine to clean the stove after cooking.
“I wipe down [the build-up of greasy/dirty film on the cabinets] with a damp cloth at least once a month, and sometimes more often if I’ve done a lot of cooking in a given month. If I’ve had an all-day cooking marathon over the weekend for a few days, I’ll do the wipe down after I’m done with all the cooking and my final cleaning, because it’s easier to remove the layers of grime/dirt when it’s fresh.
Pros & Cons: Otr Microwaves With Exhaust Fans Vs. Range Hoods
If you are planning to paint your kitchen, be sure to get a paint that can be scrubbed or use a satin or semi-gloss finish, which is the best finish for painting kitchens. This will make cleaning the walls much easier.
“We don’t have a hood, but we try to keep the kitchen as clean as possible for easy cleaning. When we repainted a while ago, we chose a very glossy paint so it could be easily wiped off (also for the ceiling).”
Proper kitchen ventilation isn’t just important for odors; it’s also a safety concern if you’re cooking on a gas stove that emits carbon monoxide. Cracking a window or using a window fan can help, but you may also want to consider purchasing a carbon monoxide meter.
If you don’t have a window. If readings show higher than recommended CO levels, it’s time to turn on fans.
What Is The Best Range Hood For Indian Cooking?
One way to combat lingering, unpleasant cooking smells is to replace them with good cooking smells! Sauté some citrus slices or a few spices on the stove (or as one reader does, in her stove) and your home will still smell, yes, but smell a lot better!
“If I’ve cooked something smelly (and not in a good way, like cabbage or seafood), I’ll throw a spice mix in the Crockpot and let it sit for about an hour (cinnamon/cloves/nutmeg/orange peel or rosemary/vanilla/lemon) and the house smells wonderful. One of these days I plan to buy an electric air freshener, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet and this solution seems to work well for odors so far.
This may be the hardest to do – if you want to fry bacon, then you want to fry bacon! — but the best way to deal with a kitchen without a stove is to cook in ways that don’t require it, or at least use some smart solutions.
Here’s how one reader, a self-described “OCD freak and germaphobe,” who manages to keep her kitchen spotless despite having no vent:
Inspiration Mw The Norfolk
“In most of my cooking, instead of worrying about steam or fat redirection, I try to prevent it as much as possible. For dishes that require boiling/heated water, I first heat the water in a large electric teapot and then pour it into the pot. I always keep the pans covered and use a lid to splatter the frying fat, even if it’s just a quick fry up of eggs for breakfast. Every little helps!
For dishes that do better without a tight lid, I use a large glass dome lid that is larger than the pot and thus usually rests on the handles, leaving little space between the pot and the lid and not creating a tight seal. This way, the pot “thinks” it’s uncovered, but the steam doesn’t circulate all over the kitchen. I use the Crockpot whenever practical to help reduce steam, and I also try to cook greasier/smellier or longer-steamer foods using an electric burner on the deck (especially in the summer, which helps to reduce the heat in the kitchen). Whenever I do this, I always set a few timers/alarms on my phone to remind me to check the pot, because being outside doesn’t reduce the risk of fire/burning if the pot is forgotten!”
Have a recirculating fan, even if you think it doesn’t do much, be sure to clean the filters regularly. If
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